Partitioning problem
 

Hi. Im trying to install linux alongside windows XP. I created a new partition using partition magic 7 and selected the options to format it in ext2 and also create a swap file partition. When i restarted XP it said it was moving my existing partition and creating a new one but then i got some error. it sectioned off the 10GB of space but never created the logical partitions inside for linux and the swap file. It didnt format it in any file system either.

What can I go? I never had this problem when i did it before. I have 10GB of completely unusable space. I cant merge it with my old partition becuase partition magic doesnt recognise that its there as it hasnt been named or formatted. It appears on the P.magic menu as "unallocated" and a primary partition.


Aswell as this if i go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management it wont open and says "Unable to connect to logical disk service"


Thanks,
NNP

You can't merge it because this is not a partition.

This is free space!!

You can redistribute free space.

A piece of advice:

Redistribute your free space but better leave the space you want for linux unallocated and let linux instalation create and manipulate the linux partitions.

Nowdays linux use three partitions(swap, / , /boot).

Also nowdays linux uses ext3 filesystem.

partition magic 7 is old and can't understand the the diff. between ext2 and ext3

Is it serious about not being able to access the disk management thing ?

Hi,

here is my suggestion: go to

http://www.goosee.com/puppy/

and download a puppy cd-version. burn the downloaded iso-image to a cd and boot with it.

once puppy has come up (no worries it runs live from the cd and does not kill your xp) go to run and start fdisk from there and check if you can access your 10GB from there. if so, delete your swap and ext2 partition and leave the diskspace free. (don't forget to leave fdisk with "w" to write the new partition table)

then boot up with the distribution you want to install and partition your hdd within the installation program of your new distro.

good luck

diddi
(there's no gravity, earth sucks)

I don't know, never used this,but i don't think so.

Just redistribute free space with PM7 and leave the space u want for linux unallocated.